On The Rise 2012: 10 Actors We're Tipping For Stardom In The Future

Last week, we took a look at the relative dearth of leading men in Hollywood: why Tom Cruise, Will Smith et al remain at the top of the tree, and why so few serious competitors have emerged since. But one of the most exciting things about our job is getting to watch the new names that emerge, breakouts who have the potential to join the A-listers, or at the very least, deliver a host of hugely exciting performances for decades to come.

Daniel Kaluuya
Those who only know it from the short-lived MTV remake, it may seem odd that British teen series "Skins" essentially seems to serve as a factory for new movie stars. Dev Patel, Nicholas Hoult, Kaya Scodelario ("Wuthering Heights") and Jack O'Connell (the upcoming "Beautiful Creatures") all got their start on the show. But the one with the potential to be the most talented of them all is Daniel Kaluuya, who had a supporting role in the earliest iteration of the show as Posh Kenneth, as well as writing a pair of episodes. The actor has gone on to great acclaim in Roy Williams' stage hit "Sucker Punch" as well as becoming something of a British TV staple, with appearances on "Doctor Who and "Psychoville" among many others. That reached something of a peak across 2011, as he gave excellent performances in both Jack Thorne's gripping supernatural drama "The Fades" (somehow managing to make a "previously on" summary genuinely moving) and in Charlie Brooker's dystopian reality TV satire "Fifteen Million Merits," part of the "Black Mirror" anthology series. Movie work has been a little slower, with Hideo Nakata's "Chatroom" his most notable credit, but it is beginning to pick up. He played Rowan Atkinson's sidekick in "Johnny English Reborn" and will next be seen alongside James McAvoy and Mark Strong in the eagerly anticipated action thriller "Welcome to the Punch." He's got charisma to burn and continues to make smart choice after smart choice -- it can't be long before he's topping a marquee near you.

Logan Marshall-Green
For all the familiar faces in the promotional materials for "Prometheus," there's one who seems less immediately recognizable. Is it a streamlined Tom Hardy? No, it's 35-year-old Logan Marshall-Green, a TV and theater veteran who we're likely to see much, much more of down the line. Marshall-Green's proabably most familiar from TV -- he played Ben McKenzie's older brother on "The O.C." and has also appeared in "24" and in a lead role in TNT's "Dark Blue." But the actor also has a string of theater credits, including Neil LaBute's "The Distance From Here" (which won him a Drama Desk Award), "Peanuts" spoof "Dog Sees God" written by "Easy A" writer Bert V. Royal, and Edmund in the Public Theater production of "King Lear" that starred Kevin Kline, all of which suggests he's far from just a pretty face. A few significant movie roles followed, including Richard Gere's ill-fated partner in "Brooklyn's Finest" and one of the leads in M. Night Shyamalan-produced horror "Devil," but his part in "Prometheus" is easily his biggest endeavor yet. The actor plays Charlie Holloway, one half of the central scientific couple with Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw, and he looks right at home among his better known co-stars. If we, and Ridley Scott, are right about him, he seems like he could be a potential answer to the leading man crisis in Hollywood, capable of both sensitive drama and more action-heavy fare. The actor doesn't have anything lined up at present as far as we can tell, but if "Prometheus" hits the way we think it might, his calendar will start filling up.

Scoot McNairyScoot McNairy has come to the brink of stardom more than once in the past -- he had roles in films like "Wonderland" and "Herbie Fully Loaded" in the mid-noughties, and five years ago toplined the well-received indie romance "In Search of a Midnight Kiss," but could never quite convert either into true Hollywood attention. But that all changed when the Texan actor starred, with his girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife Whitney Able, in Gareth Edwards' micro-budget sci-fi "Monsters." The film proved to be a big festival hit, and suddenly McNairy was the toast of the town. And while he had a number of offers floating around (including, coincidentally, Logan Marshall-Green's part in "Prometheus"), he seems to have pretty good taste, turning down "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" for two serious, dramatic pictures from top directors. First up is the return of the "The Assassination of Jesse James" helmer Andrew Dominik with crime tale "Killing Them Softly," in which the actor and "Animal Kingdom" star Ben Mendelsohn play two junkies who rip off a mob-affiliated card game, bringing enforcer Brad Pitt down on them. And soon after, he'll turn up in Ben Affleck's based-in-fact drama "Argo," as Iranian Consul Officer Joe Stafford, one of the hostages that Affleck's CIA team is tasked with rescuing. When you add in found-footage horror flick "A Night In The Woods" from the producers of "Monsters," he's going to be damn near inescapable in the next few months, and we're sure there'll be much more to follow.